Changing wildfire complexity highlights the need for institutional adaptation

As wildfires grow increasingly complex, institutional adaptation—adjusting institutions to respond effectively to environmental changes—is crucial for enhancing wildfire management capabilities. However, institutional adaptation is a challenge as the connection between environmental changes and human institutions remains poorly understood. Here, by analysing trends in five incident characteristics linked to institutional complexity at national and regional levels from 1999 to 2020 in the USA, we show national trends of increasing institutional complexity of wildfire indicators associated with wildfire governance, logistics, management, resource scarcity and network coordination. Substantial regional variation was observed, with some cases exhibiting trends in opposite directions. For example, while average jurisdictional complexity showed an increase in the west, it decreased in the east. These results offer insight into the linkage between environmental change and demands for institutional adaptation and provide an empirical basis for considering potential trade-offs of different institutional adaptations in light of competing pressures.